Surviving our children-and Alaskan politics-one day at a time.

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What a crazy and bizarre month it’s been. We’re down to the wire, and the candidates are starting to get loopy. I can’t tell if it’s election fever or some sort of Halloween candy-related hypomania. Here’s Joe Miller’s most recent ad:

He surely knows we’ve been calling Palin SWWNBN for years, right? [crickets]

During the week, I sometimes find myself inspired by something I read or hear. I compose the post in my head but then I realize that I eventually wind up discussing the one person I have pledged to ignore. So I don’t write it. This explains my lack of posts as of late. Today, however, I heard something in church that made me think of not just her, but of the other people in her “circle”.

You see, I’ve decided something. I’ve decided that she is not a politician. She never was a politician. That’s why she was so bad at it. That is why she quit. She is an entertainer. She is a very good entertainer. She is entertaining people on both the right and the left. People on both sides just can’t get enough of her.

This morning, the sermon that inspired me to post was based on Luke 16:13, the Parable of the Shrewd Manager:

“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

This got me thinking about her and the other entertainers. They claim to serve God, yet their actions show that they serve Money. Actions speak louder than words, my friends. Beck was talking on the radio yesterday and said, “One guy sent me eight cents.” Since I just caught this snippet as I was hurriedly changing channels, I can only assume he was referring to one of his donors who had so little to his name that he took the few pennies he had and sent it to Glenn Beck, a millionaire. Beck went on to say, “I will not apologize for how much money I make.” How quaint. I believe that Beck and Palin are just like the televangelists that take money from the poorest and most (mentally) vulnerable among us.

If they truly loved and served God, as Beck claimed at his rally, they would have donated every cent they made. Instead, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation will only get whatever is left over after the rally’s bills are paid. How touching, Mr. Beck. I can tell where your heart lies.

In everything they do, they are serving Money. Look for yourself- see what their actions say. From the books, to the TV show, to the radio, to “Beck University” (ONLY $9.95 a month!! SIGN UP NOW!!) to advertising gold: it’s all about the Money.

Enough said.

Update: Check out this article over at The Immoral Minority, where a Tea Party candidate says exactly what I said above.

“State Representative Jeffrey D. Perry of Sandwich, who aligned himself with the Tea Party movement in a successful effort to win the Republican nomination in the 10th Congressional district, said in a television interview today he did not want the erstwhile Alaska governor and fellow Tea Party star campaigning for him this fall.

This Saturday, I volunteered to drive my best friend and her daughter to Girl Scout camp in the Valley. On the way, we passed Lake Lucille and what I’m pretty sure is her church. The camp was absolutely breathtaking. I wished I was eight years old again just so I could stay at the camp.

As we drove away, I noticed that the car in front of us had a McCain/Palin sticker on it. Normally when I come across cars with a Palin sticker (as I so often do here in Anchorage), I always look at the rest of the car to see if there are any other stickers or identifying features to help me understand the person driving the car. At first, I didn’t notice anything (that’s the sticker in the upper left-hand corner):

And then I looked closer, and actually gasped:

It’s hard to see, but the license plate cover says, “My president is a Marxist from Kenya.”

I felt equal parts embarrassed and furious. I am so frustrated with people like this. What The Hell, America?

Joe McGinniss is like a marine biologist who says all he wants to do is observe the great white shark in its natural habitat. Joe the biologist made one fatal mistake, however: he got too close. He got in the personal space of the shark, and it attacked him, not surprisingly.

I don’t blame Joe, although he should have known better. The great white is known for its aggressive behavior. It has shown in the past to be extremely reactionary, paranoid, and hyper-vigilant, especially in its home waters. Joe should have known this, as a shark expert, and should have given it a wide berth.

Nor do I blame the shark. It is in its nature to react in an extreme manner- to attack when provoked.

So, now what does Joe do? Does he get out of the water to stop the attack? Does he stay and subject himself to more and more rancor and hatred? Does he let the shark’s fish friends continue to pick at him, little by little, just to expose their behavior to the light? Or does he swim away to fight another day?

Time can only tell, but one thing is for sure: we now know a little bit more about the great white than we did before, and it paints a very unflattering picture of the true nature of the beast.

It’s tax time, and as April 15th draws near, we’ll be inundated with tax-hating protesters who just can’t stand to see a single dime of their hard-earned money go toward taxes.

Heaven forbid that we actually give money to our government so they can take care of the things that the rest of us have neither the time, the skill, nor the money to pay for ourselves.

I was on a walk to the park last weekend with my daughter, and I realized that everything around me was paid for by taxes.

The playground equipment:
The public tennis courts:
The covered shelter:

We started to head home, and I kept looking around me, amazed just how much I (we) take for granted.

The paved and plowed street:
The street lights (installed, maintained and lit by taxes):
The bus system:
The street signs:
It just kept going and going.

Imagine what our lives would be like if they government didn’t use our taxes to pay for these things. When the United States first became a country, each person in each household had to come together to work for the common good (uh oh, that sounds a lot like Socialism, doesn’t it?). They had to work together and use their time, energy, skills and money to get everything done. The signs would have to be made, the lights lit, the roads paved and plowed, the schools built…it goes on and on. No wonder life-expectancy was only 35 years.

These anti-tax people use government services every day, and I bet they don’t even think twice about it. I think it’s time to remind our Freedom-loving friends just what our taxes pay for. For more information about where our tax money goes, visit The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

And just for fun, here’s a little protest sign humor to brighten your day: